A Tale of a Wren and a Jay
by Riddlesnare
Summary: Wren is a noble, albeit aloof nobushi of a distant village sitting on the far border of her empire. A small faction of Warborn harry her home relentlessly over the span of months, and even still as winter sets in, claiming the lives of many of her fellow defenders. Mercenaries are in turn hired by the daimyō to aid them, and among them, as Wren soon finds, is one, peculiar warden.
1. Chapter 1: Dawn

Blood

The thick, metallic, unmistakable scent of blood littered the frigid, early-winter, morning air as a nobushi, Wren Yanagi, tore her spear-like _naginata_ out of the Warborn berserker's limp body. His corpse, rippling with muscle that once contained savage duress and life, fighting with tooth and claw to kill her, now laid below her on the frost-covered ground like a crimson-covered rock, as well as the two small axes he once wielded. He put up a strong fight, but he was ultimately too slow to effectively combat himself against the nobushi before she ended him.

Wren possessed a thin but strong feminine body, covered by light armor and blue-tinted clothing her order traditionally wore. Over her face was a blank white noh mask made from wood she carved herself upon completing her initiation as a full-fledged nobushi, with only two thin eyeholes to see out of. Atop her head was a jingasa war hat acting as her helm; a quite common, and effective piece of light headware.

She continued looking down at her former opponent, catching her breath all the while and intending on moving elsewhere to assist her fellow nobushi in the defense of this village under attack by the small band of Warborn. As Wren did this, she was unaware of a large shape quietly approaching her at a rapid pace.

The shape belonged to a viking raider, and he was a tall figure; even taller than the berserker Wren had previously faced. His brown beard was long, almost as much as the braid of hair running down from his concealed skull to his back. Aside from random bits of gear he had on his shoulders and waist, his head was covered in a metal helmet bearing only one intact horn of bone on its left side, and in his hands was a great Dane axe. He soon broke into a full-on charge as the nobushi detected his presence, and outstretched his arms. Hearing his coming, crunching footsteps, Wren turned with her weapon raised but was unable to react before he grabbed her up in his arms and flung her down to the cold, hard ground with full force.

Wren gasped as she felt the wind getting knocked out of her lungs the second her smaller form impacted against the frost-covered floor of the forest. Ignoring the pain as she had been trained, she got onto one knee, just in time to look up and roll away from an oncoming blow. The axehead of he enemy's weapon smashed into the ground, parting the dirt and rock that could have easily been her head instead.

Back on her feet as the Dane was pulling weapon from the ground, Wren took a firm hold of her _naginata_ and jabbed it forward with vigor and speed. She missed by a hair when the raider sidestepped to the left, but was quick to pull back and stab again, this time embedding her blade in his lower left side, leaving a large wound in her wake.

Seemingly unaffected by the bleeding injury that would bring most fighters to pause, he raider unleashed booming cry as he lifted his Dane axe and dropped its wicked blade down vertically again as Wren pulled her own blade out of his flesh. The nobushi rolled away mere seconds before she could be hit. Her grip tightening around the wooden pole of her weapon, she thought out her next move with the second she was given, and formulated a plan just as the viking went on the attack again.

Wren, with her smaller size giving her greater agility, managed to avoid or parry every strike he sent her way, and once he tired from overexerting his strength, acted as she planned. Her idea was to swing her blade not at the raider's brazen chest or head, but at his equally-unprotected legs. Springing forth until she was practically behind him, she narrowly struck down at his lower left limb, cutting swiftly through a mixture of of the fur and leather tied there, and then the the muscle and nerve right behind the knee.

The raider bellowed out a roar of pain at this crippling wound and almost fell down for it, but sheer determination kept him standing and staggered on his good right leg. He openly spun around and horizontally sent his axe at the figure behind him with all of his might, but by then the nobushi had avoided the blow by ducking below it. She took her _naginata_ and aimed its end at his upper body for what she knew was to be the blow that would finish the fight, and swung it.

In that swing, the blade sliced cleanly through his throat and passed through his flesh with as much effect as a fleeting breeze, all in the span of a split second. The raider didn't seem to register the effects of the attack at first, but when his mind caught up with his body and a stream of warm crimson flowed freely from his fatal wound, he uttered a most horrid gurgling noise and fell to his knees, blood gushing also from his clenched mouth. His hands dropping his axe to the ground with a clatter, they clasped at his throat, desperate but vain to halt his coming demise.

Wren, standing back, watched him struggle and fail to hold onto his life. Not wishing to prolong her foe's suffering, the nobushi held her _naginata_ back and, very much in the manner of a regal executioner, struck it forth a final time with a grunt. The blade tip of the pole weapon cut fully through his neck with only the viking's hands there to hinder its way of travel, severing his head completely. The raider's body limply collapsed alongside his decapitated cranium, and the fight was over.

Wren inhaled a deep breath and her heartbeat began to slow; a refreshed scent of punctured flesh and ichor now entering her nose, filling her gut with a sick feeling she had long since learned to cope with. She had not long to recuperate however, when the sound of clashing steel caught her ears somewhere in the distance. Without hesitation she ran in the direction of the noise to aid what she rightfully believed was one of her allies, which traced in a direction closer to the village; specifically a part of the main pathway that led to it. She ran until spotting a lit lamppost that partially illuminated the three figures in the mist before it, coming upon a sight that, once she made it out, she did not expect.

While two of the figures were vikings, one being a shield-bearing warlord and the other being another berserker armed with dual axes, it was unmistakable that the third one - the warrior being assaulted by the pair of vikings - was a _knight_. A type of knight referred to as a warden, to be more precise. The worn steel armor covering every inch of his body reflected the orange light of the nearby lamppost like a faded mirror, as well as the dusty, dull-brown cloth sitting over his chest. The only other colors to be seen on his carapace was old, peeling white paint covering the right half of his helmet's faceplate, both of his pauldrons, and a pair of zigzag patterns on his thigh armor. In his hands, currently being used to parry a blow from the berserker's twin axes, was a great longsword of fine craftsmanship.

He kicked the berserker off of himself as he was lunging and focused on the oncoming warlord. Swinging his sword, he raked it across the shield of the viking, throwing him fully away with the force of the blow. The knight turned next to the once-again oncoming berserker, and instead of preparing to withstand a blow, charged forth as well and thrust the tip of his sword directly forward, catching the Warborn by surprise and running him cleanly through from his exposed chest. He pushed the impaled viking back in his charge until his body collided with the lamppost with a cracking of the pole's wood, bending the post a foot out of place with a shriek and groan of the object, though it held.

The warden tore his sword out of his limp opponent, and the berserker's deceased body slid from the post to the ground. Sucking in a deep breath as Wren only watched it all happen, he turned to face his remaining foe, only to feel a shield bashing against his arm, knocking his longsword out of his gauntleted hands.

The warlord horizontally swung his gladius sword while the knight was unarmed, but the warden ducked below it in time and landed on the ground. Sharply grunting a curse, he dug his hands deep into the thick, frost-covered soil below him until he held powdery clumps of earth in his palms. The knight arose and threw what he had collected into the Warborn's bearded face as he was raising his own weapon, covering it in the stuff.

The dry dirt and cold frost particles hitting his unprotected eyes, the warlord cried out in surprise as he felt them. His swing went blindly at his foe, missing by a significant margin. The warden, by that point, had retrieved his sword and stabbed it forward, sending its tip between the viking's legs. Pulling it again, he brought his blade upward in a sudden, brutal stroke, right into and through the viking's groin.

Crying out in agony, the Dane's knees buckled together and he fell upon them; his sword and shield falling from his hands before he could focus them instead of his wretched wound. Lifting his longsword high, and with one unimpeded swing later, the Warborn's helmeted head was lopped off in a bloody display. The viking joined his ally in death's stillness, while the knight, looking at the dwindling river of blood exiting the cadaver and washing the ground from behind his visor, huffed and puffed. He quickly caught the shape of the observing nobushi out from the corner of his eye and turned his head slowly in her direction.

"Hmm. Hello there," he almost casually greeted a few seconds later in the language of the Legion; his voice young, but dry with exhaustion. Wren had taken lessons from to speak more than just her native Japanese, and in the process became very well versed Latin. She understood him clearly. She held her _naginata_ as it was and, after a moment's silence, replied.

"Who are you?" the nobushi spoke back in his tongue. "What is a knight of the Legion doing in these parts? Are your forces attacking?"

"We are _not_ attacking, I do not hold _any_ affinity toward the Legion, and I am here on simple _business_ ," he replied, calm and collected with his breath caught.

"With what sort of armor you wear, I think that what you say is false."

"I implore you not to fret; I am but a mercenary," he said again, sticking the tip of his weapon's blade into the frost-covered ground and rested his arms on its pommel, falling into a more relaxed position in spite of the nobushi's offensive stance. "One of several who are here right now. We were hired out by your _daimyō_ three days ago to defend this village for, as we agreed, the entirety of this winter, and this winter alone. We hold no ties to the Legion."

Wren's face was held in a skeptic glare from behind her mask. "My _daimyō_ sent no word to my village discussing the matters of sellswords," she growled as she walked closer to him, keeping her weapon trained on him the whole time. "I find a logical reason to not believe you still."

"Well, the truth is that he _did_ , my newest..." he paused for a moment, thinking of what to call her. " _Associate_ ," he eventually finished. The knight kept his stare at the from behind his helmet's visor before moving his sword aside a short ways to give an overly courteous, and blatantly exaggerated bow. "Jervis Malory, professional sellsword and second-in-command of my esteemed contingent of soldiers of fortune, at your service. The rest of my group are elsewhere at the moment, helping your forces repel what little remain of these invaders, if any. Oh, and you're welcome for that, Chosen."

Wren went over what she should do next before finally lowering her guard. She still kept her distance just in case, and she also had another reason to keep her hostility toward him. "How you dealt with that warlord... it was quite the cowardly maneuver," she stated, with much disapproval evident in her tone. Jervis turned his head to the corpse of the viking in question, shrugged, and looked back.

"I am neither cowardly, nor am I dishonorable," he denied, shaking finger in her direction. "I am... what's the word... _pragmatic_. A man such as I must be that way in order to survive for a long time in this form of profession. And in all fairness, both had ganged up on me originally."

"But when it came down to just you and him, you used tactics only a worm on its last stretches of life would turn to."

"All that matters is that _I_ came out the victor," he responded, clearly not truly caring over her accusation, and changing the subject altogether with what he said next. "Well, there wasn't too much action going on when my cohorts and I arrived, so I do believe your village is safe again. For now, at least. But for heaven's sake, let us save this delightful little conversation for another time and meet up with our commanders to make sure. We could so so over a drink at a local tavern in this place, perhaps?"

Wren chose silence over answering to his sarcastic invitation, and her eyes glared at him with a mixture of annoyance and tetchiness from behind the holes of her mask. The warden could sense her waspishness, and a smile curled onto his lips from within the darkness of his helmet. He let out a chuckle of amusement and, nodding his head once, jogged off to the western side of the village's border with his longsword in hand.

Wren was left alone, and she chose not to spend that time thinking of her encounter. With purpose in her stride, she ran to the eastern side of the village to do her part in returning peace to her home.

* * *

The knight proved right when he predicted the skirmish was practically over. The surviving vikings retreated with what little food and supplies they managed to grab, and all they left in their wake was the bodies of their own. Wren walked back into the village by herself, heading in the direction of the temple. The temple was where she and her fellow nobushi were trained, and it also served as their home until a threatening force, like the one posed by the vikings, attacked. Reaching it, she sat down on one of the steps that led up to its main building and rested there for a while.

Wren pulled her hat and mask off and inhaled a deep breath, exposing her sweat-soaked, pale face and several long strands of raven-black hair that fell from her forehead. The hair along the back of her head was tied into a Shimada-styled bun to keep it from flowing around and getting in the way during battle. When she exhaled, a small cloud of vapor formed like the mist over the ground against the cold temperature.

It wasn't long before a new shape, one clad in the same garb, clothing, armor and mask as her, approached. She was clearly another nobushi, and she also had a naginata in her grasp. To the untrained eye of any onlooker, one would be unable to distinguish one nobushi apart from the other, but to other nobushi, like Wren, there were enough minuscule details on her armor for her to know who this one was.

It was none other than her mother, and the grandmaster of the nobushi in this village, Fukuro.

"Mother," nodded Wren when the nobushi was but a foot away from her.

"Hello, my little Songbird," Fukuro greeted back in an older, somewhat gravelly voice. "How did you fare against the enemy?"

"All who opposed me met their end," she stated bluntly as she looked down at the dry blood coated along the edge of the weapon in her lap, before her tone became filled with a hint of concern. "Did we lose anyone?"

"Not this day, thank the heavens," her mother answered as she sat down beside her daughter and pulled her own mask off, revealing a slightly wrinkled, peach-tinted face. Her hair was almost as black as her daughter's, but was gray in some areas, further showing off her age without the aid of her concealing piece of wood to hide it away. "All our five fellow nobushi are accounted for. I... assume you witnessed the mercenaries upon their arrival?"

"I did," Wren said, "and I want to know why I wasn't informed of their coming."

"The truth is that I only found out about it a few scant minutes before the village came under attack," Fukuro sighed. "The road's been extremely perilous as of late with this damnable conflict, so our on-foot messengers are at constant risk of being attacked by the troops of our enemies when not by roving bands of bandits. The last several notes I received have also been stating that falcons - _trained_ falcons - have been preying on our homing pigeons. The one where I gained insight on the sellswords was the third they sent my way."

The leader of the nobushi saw her daughter's head was low with what she sensed was perturbation. "You do not approve of their presence in our home, do you?"

"One of them bears an exceptionally thick head," came Wren's next mutter.

"And you know this... how?" Fukuro raised a brow.

"I met him."

"I see." The older warrioress' brow lowered again and a small laugh escaped her mouth. "Just know that our _daimyō_ paid an exceptional amount of money for their services in helping us defend the town this winter. Even should they lack it themselves, treat them with dignity, my daughter. After losing twelve of our own in this last season, and _especially_ after we lost your sister, I... I know we need all the fighters we can acquire. These last several raids concocted by these Warborn have only been efforts to prod our defenses by a meager few of their forces, but it's only a matter of time before they mount more powerful strikes against us. This group of Danes is not allied with a larger force, I know that, but I still feel their numbers are bigger than what we know."

"I understand that, Mother," Wren agreed; her tone monotonous. "I will not act with disrespect against our new allies, if I can help it."

Fukuro trusted her words fully. "There's my bright little Songbird," she thanked, putting the butt of her _naginata's_ pole to the ground and using it to help her stand back up after putting her mask back on. "I must now go and speak with the townspeople, so I might inform them of what had occurred during the attack. I will see you later tonight, Wren."

"And I will see you, Mother," Wren said a final time. She lifted her head only to watch her parent and grandmaster leave to tend to her business until she vanished into the cloud of mist, and when that happened she gathered her things and paced up the steps, and walked into the temple without a word.


	2. Chapter 2: The Time After

Morning had passed, noon came and left, and now afternoon was upon the town. The clouds were gray for most of the day, but the sky itself began showing its first shades of darkness from the approaching night. Many of the townspeople had to flee indoors to escape the coming cold brought with nightfall, including the mercenaries, who found shelter, food and drink within a local tavern near the middle of the village, where they had been given lodging for their time here.

Regis Thurst was the leader of the mercenary group, the Band of the Few. A former lawbringer of the Blackstone Legion, he deserted it a great many years ago when he was still a very young man, as it was in the midst of being torn to bloody ribbons by its three enemies in the form of the combined forces of the Warborn, Legion, and Chosen. Aimlessly traveling about in search of a more ways to make a living, he discovered the lucrative manner of work known as being a sellsword. After a few years of wandering about alone, he eventually came across some like-minded individuals and, knowing just how much more effective and wealthy they could become by pooling their talents and resources together, they all founded the group with him at its head.

There were a total of seven in the band, counting himself. One of them was his wife (they weren't formally married; they had no time, nor desire for it), a warden by the name of Valentina Carius. Valentina was a knightess of strong build, and a temper short enough to cause her lord to cast her away after repeated offenses dealing with assaulting her superiors. She was also a particularly tall woman, her hair was of a golden blonde color, and hung in a long braid down her armored back. Her winged Loran helmet was off and sitting on the table, resting beside Regis' own, crested one.

Ishi, a kensei from the Dawn Empire who had a dark set of armor over her older form, was at the table adjacent to theirs. She was the most quiet of them all, in part due to having lost half of her lower jaw in her youth from an incident she never cared to describe, and wore her helmet and mask persistently to hide it. Knowing this area of the world they all knew best, she was the one who also advised the group about accepting work from the same _daimyō_ who ended up hiring them out to this rural village sitting on the outskirts of his expansive land. Sitting across from her was the brawny, thick-bearded, red-haired viking Svane; a mighty raider from Valkenheim, and a rather boisterous one to boot. He was currently making merry with his chummiest comrades of the group, a pair of equally battle-worn, flail-wielding conquerors known only as Felix and Jacob.

The warriors all chattered intermittently among themselves on various matters they wanted to voice. The current subject that had caught fire in the group's mind was the thoughts concerning the nobushi who were perhaps the most central group to be known within this village. It happened to begin with Svane talking about how odd their masks looked, and only escalated from there.

"But why don't they choose to wear proper armor?" Jacob inquired, truly wanting to know.

"Because they need to be light to move around as they do," pointed out Regis, who knew quite well the disadvantages of being so heavily armored as he was.

"And they all wear the same _exact_ uniform. Just about, anyway," Felix spoke up with a raised finger. "They're not even a real, designated part of the Dawn Empire's military organization, if I'm not mistaken. Yet... they're so very _militant_."

"That's not all, I'm willing to bet," Svane went on with a dense and throaty laugh. "They seem so much like a... a small _cabal_ , of sorts. Like a... like a real-"

"The nobushi are an _order_ ," the low, hollow voice of Ishi suddenly interrupted, causing the lot of them to turn their attention on to her. "An order of warriors that developed on their own in the more far-off areas of what is known today as the Dawn Empire, even before gaining recognition. They protect places where protection is scarce. Defend those whom are defenseless. They bear no authority where they surveil, yet they do all this with the power and fortified that is theirs, and theirs alone. In many ways, they are not unlike wardens with their duties."

"What kinds of... _wardens?_ " Valentina's brow lowered, as though she was hearing a bad joke aimed at herself.

"Certainly not the kind Malory represents," Ishi mumbled after a few seconds, shifting herself slightly around in her seat. Felix looked at the samurai with an odd expression and then looked around the tavern.

"Speaking of whom, where is the bastard?"

"Piss drunk at the bar, as per the usual," Valentina spoke again, motioning with a free hand before guzzling down heartily from her own mug resting in the other and wiping her mouth with a nearby rag. "I already warned the keepers of this place that he's probably going to vomit up most of the drinks they give him."

"Oh, okay," he calmly replied.

Jacob nodded his head in agreement to this answer. "He always does this, doesn't he? Might not be the wisest of times to get sozzled, with how often things turn violent around here."

"Which reminds me of something..." Regis spoke, standing up in his seat and then leaving it. "Excuse me, you all. I'll be back in a minute."

Regis left the group and walked his large, armored shape over to the bar sitting behind the corner. The first thing he saw was Jervis sitting on at the bar, alone; his helmet off and beside him, and his sword leaning against the counter. The second thing he witnessed were the several bottles of beer and rice wine surrounding his prone shape, all empty, and some also knocked over. He was laying his upper body face-down on the counter, and the lawbringer pulled up another stool beside him and sat in it. Looking to his motionless body, even with his eyes closed, Regis could tell he wasn't asleep.

He coughed into his fist and began. "Hello, Jervis. Might I have a word with you, my old friend?"

"Mrrmm... Go away..." came a mumbling groan, partially muffled by how his mouth was half pressed against the wooden surface it was upon.

"Not until you hear what important subject I have to talk about with you," Regis said back. "It's about your drinking, I'm afraid."

"I said..." Jervis stopped for a second as he groggily lifted his head and turned it Regis' way, exhaling a sour breath. "I said piss off."

"It's always something along those lines whenever I try to get a sensible answer out of you on this matter," the lawbringer sighed, looking at Jervis' ever-worn, pallid face and the small, unkempt, dark brown beard that wrapped around his currently rosy-tinted cheeks. "But you told me you were going to get off the stuff for this job of ours. Getting back on the clean wagon for the sake of it, so to speak."

"I don't remember saying _anything_ like that," he argued, not truly sure with himself if what he said was true in his current state.

"Come now." Regis extended his arm over Jervis' shoulder and held it there. "You're a man of sound reasoning, when you're not under the influence of a drink. We both know you once said that."

"No, we... erm, _I_ don't."

"I see," Regis huffed. Looking away from the warden he motioned his hand to the figure tending to the drinks over the counter several feet from where they were. "Bartender, if you may, get me a final bottle of your best rice wine for my friend here."

The man, a young, character in his early twenties, if the lawbringer were to hazard a guess, nodded his head and did as he was told. He brought forth a bottle of sake, and Regis exchanged the drink with several gold pieces. He turned back to Jervis next and grunted.

"This... this is your last bottle of alcohol," he stated, shaking the bottle and sloshing around its liquid contents. "Without me paying you your share of our wealth all up front for this job, you'll not be able to buy another. It's only going to be put toward food and anything I see as reasonable now."

Jervis looked at the bottle in a glare and snatched it away after a few seconds of dizzily staring at it's glass surface. "You're a..." he stopped and thought of what to call him in the haze that was now his mind. "You're a goddamn _tyrant_ , Thurst. A... tyrant."

"If I were a lord or a king, maybe," he shrugged, pouting his lip in understanding of his ally's suffering before shedding the look in favor of a more serious visage. "But here, I'm your _boss_. And I don't want a drunken dolt meandering clumsily about on the battlefield if we get attacked in the middle of the night. Our given duty is too important for that. If I have to treat you like a nobleman with his bastard child and a toy, then so be it."

With a friendly smile and a pat on the arm, Regis left his seat with a squeak of the stool's legs and began walking back to rejoin the others at their tables, leaving Jervis alone with his last drink. He eyed the thing closely, unable to read its label with the blurred vision brought on by his drunkenness. After a few minutes transpired and he failed to read the thing through, he, too, left his seat. He picked his helmet up from the counter in his free hand and placed it over his head, then grabbed his sword as well. Upon finishing this, he began to dizzily move off to the doorway a small ways away. He was just reaching it when he stopped and turned.

Jervis stared his allies and friends a short distance from where he was now with a longing look behind his headgear. He stood there at the doorway for a time he couldn't fathom, watching them all converse with (mostly) sober grins on their faces. He soon grew tired of it and looked back to his drink, and then cast his eyes out of the door. Uncaring of the cold, late afternoon air, he stumbled outside; intent of savoring this last bottle of alcohol out there, where no one he knew would be watching him.

* * *

Wren found herself awakening just before the sun had its chance to peek over the mountains neighboring the village. Before the first rooster called and signaled the official start of a new day. Even before her fellow nobushi, the ones who had not taken the night-to-morning watch shift, were all up and prepared. It was just how she always liked it.

Quiet and alone; unmolested by the troubles of simple conversation. A type of peacefulness and stillness that could only be achieved by coming to one's senses before dawn was at hand. Such was the prospect she saw of it.

Having gotten washed and dressed, Wren entered an empty section of her order's dojo. She lit several lanterns about the area so she could see better, pulled a spare, thin _bō_ staff from where it rested on a nearby weapon rack, and began to practice with it. She swung, thrust, vaulted, and overall used it in the manner similar to how she would use her _naginata_ in battle, not unlike the skirmish that had occurred yesterday.

The bodies of the vikings who had attempted to raid the outer parts of the village the day prior had been collected, burned, and buried. The least thing she and her people could do was ensure a proper burial to their fallen foes. Wren thought about it as she trained with only blissful silence to surround her. This was not to last, though, as a shape began to emerge from the doorway.

Kamome, a young nobushi trainee of sixteen years old who was nearing the time of the final trials that would make her a fully qualified member of their order, walked into the dojo with hushed steps. Like Wren, she was covered in the armor of her kind, save for her her thin, youthful face and dark-haired head. It was as she was several feet from her when Wren noticed her presence, and ceased in her activity to turn to her.

"Greetings and good morning, Kamome. I did not expect you to awaken yet. What is it you want?" she asked monotonously.

Kamome's still face was devoid of emotion, but her true excitement was betrayed by her hands rapidly tightening over her _bō_ staff's wooden surface. "Duel me."

Taking in a deep breath, Wren placed a hand to her hip and uttered a small hum as she looked at her. "You wish to face me? Here and now?"

"Yes, I do."

"On what reason?"

Her young ally had quite the purpose for it, and so was quick to voice her answer. "On the sole reason that it has been a long time since we last had a proper chance to spar." As Wren heard this, she took it in and eventually grunted in agreement.

They once did this activity often as a form of training, but this was the first time she had asked Wren to a duel since the death of her younger sister, Suzume, just over a month ago. She had been cut down by the Warborn during the largest raid they had conducted up to this point; swarmed by some of their grunts and killed while her back was turned by an axe-wielding berserker. Wren, already not the most social character of her order, became even more reserved from her sistren, and far more... _quiet_. Kamome, very much full of energy that had yet to be tempered, could stand the damnable silence her friend and part-time tutor emitted no longer, and so sought to end it now.

"May we?" she asked in an almost pleading tone, raising her staff in an offensive position.

"Fine. Show me what you have built up upon since we last trained together," Wren bid. Kamome obliged her and lunged forth with a horizontal swing. Wren blocked it easily and engaged her new opponent. Their sticks clashed repeatedly, filling the once-quiet dojo with a clattering noise and the sound of strained grunts of effort. Things took a big turn when Wren launched herself at Kamome and kicked out.

Her foot impacted against Kamome's chest, pushing her back and causing her to stumble. Without a second to lose, Wren loosed her staff's fore in a sweeping blow that caught her legs and pulled them off of the ground where they stood, causing her to fall to it, onto her back. Kamome was unable to recover in time, as Wren was swiftly upon her and held the tip of her _bō_ close to her throat.

"You're dead," Wren monotonously stated, pulling her staff away and stepping back a few feet. "Our duel concludes. Satisfied?"

Kamome was quite the opposite. "Not yet."

"Like a gull you squawk and call for attention, and I seem to be the only one who ever is around when your high-pitched cackling begins. You have yet to prove yourself as capable as I, yet you constantly vie for my eye and my staff."

The younger nobushi had a retort to speak aloud. "Because I believe that one day, however far off it may be, I shall defeat you in one of our sparring matches on my own ability."

"And you may, _if_ you train for it," Wren nodded, a small smile forming on her lips. She pointed the tip of her staff in the direction of her fellow warrioress in invitation to continue their session. "Care to test your skills on me once more?"

"Yes." Kamome ran at her in a burst of speed. Their sticks clashed together again and again for several minutes; cracking off one another as the trainee flaunted her moves. While attacking several times as well, Wren mostly remained on the defensive, parrying or avoiding the blows that came her way. She seemed invulnerable with how not a single attack landed on her; only missing or hitting her stick. This continued when the young protégé started speaking, hoping to gain her friend's opinion on the current situation to befall them.

"What do you..." She paused to avoid a coming swing and paced back a meter. "...Think about those mercenaries coming here? I believe they will be of used to us in the long run if they serve their purpose well, but I wish I knew about them a little bit longer in advance."

"Of that, we can agree." Wren dropped her defenses, charged forth and swung her staff diagonally upward. "I detest sellswords of any standing."

"Why?" Kamome parried the coming blow and thrust the head of her staff forward in a jabbing motion, only to miss as Wren sidestepped it. "Is there something you see as troubling in them?"

"A mercenary is a person whose loyalty lies only in money and interest. They are soldiers of fortune, and nothing more." Pole tip to the floor, Wren vaulted a flying a kick at her opponent, missing Kamome only by a small margin as she rolled away and landing without an issue. "They may serve with the ferocity of any warrior, but only for something they want." She went on with her planned attack and used both of her hands to drive the middle of her _bō_ forth against Kamome's own just before she could retaliate with an attack, pushing the nobushi trainee back with her force. "And as soon as their contract expires with their client, they have just as much a chance to seek work elsewhere as they do to turn on their former employers by lending their services to their enemies. Before you know it..."

Wren mercilessly fought with almost all the strength and agility that was hers, and got her opponent to go onto a fully defensive posture to counter the strikes, just how she wanted. In one more motion the staff suddenly swept low, hitting against Kamome's exposed left ankle and knocking her off balance. She was sent thudding to the ground with another push from her elbow. Wren stood over her fallen sparring partner and pointed one of the ends of her weapon to exposed throat, signalling her defeat.

"... _You're dead,_ " finished Kamome's superior.

Kamome knew she had beaten again all too well. Defeat was always a bitter taste, but it was a taste she had gotten used to from her sessions with Wren. Putting a finger to the tip of her friend's wooden weapon, she moved it away from her neck. Blowing a long strand of her loosened hair from her face with a puff of air, she collected her own _bō_ and stood up again. "Well fought?" she inquired, hoping for positive feedback.

"As well as you could provide," answered Wren with a slight smirk, as if amused. "Your reaction time is _decent_ , but more than anything you need to work more on your defense."

A large grin came over Kamome's face. "So it would seem."

"So it would seem indeed," Wren said. Though there was a thought tickling her brain that urged her to tell Kamome to prepare herself and try once more to attack her, if only for the sheer nostalgia of it, Wren refrained from the temptation. "What we were able to do now was a... welcome occurrence. Certainly welcome after all the bloodshed I've witnessed yesterday. But I regret that I must end our sparring session," she spoke again, but softly, and turning away slightly. "My turn to keep watch at the village border is soon to come."

"I wish I were able to join you in your watch," sighed her inexperienced friend, looking to her feet and the floor dejectedly.

"You are not yet ready for such a task. Your training is not yet complete," stated Wren. Kamome nodded in agreement.

"I know that," she sighed. "When you leave, be wary and vigilant."

"And I shall. Till we meet later tonight, should things go without incident," the nobushi said, nodding her head back. With a joyful smile, Wren turned and walked off and out of the dojo to tend to her morning matters. As she left, Wren thought for a few seconds on Kamome, and then allowed her mind to drift on the matters of her order.

What was once over nineteen fully-fledged nobushi in the order had dropped to seven. It was all because of the ceaseless attempts at raiding the village from the vikings, but in times like these, it was, perhaps, to be be expected. And even so, with all of their trainees - each one freshly plucked from willing children of the village to be trained in the ways of the nobushi - their numbers would rise once more with patience and time, if fate were kind enough.

But, as Wren had learned well from experience, fate wasn't normally as forgiving as many would hope in this day and age...


End file.
